Colin Steen is CEO of Legacy Agripartners. He has had a lifelong career in agriculture, spending over 25 years with Syngenta in a variety of commercial leadership and Venture Capital roles before joining Legacy Seed Companies (now Legacy Agripartners) in July 2020. His prior experience in running Golden Harvest Seeds has given him a deep understanding of the needs of the U.S. farmer. Colin grew up on a grain and cattle farm in Weldon, Saskatchewan, and holds a B.S. in Agriculture from the University of Saskatchewan and an MBA from the University of Guelph.
ONE PLANET PODCAST
Tell us about what you learned growing up on a farm.
COLIN STEEN
It's interesting, as I've gotten older, I've really started to reflect back on that early time growing up on a farm. And I'm fiercely, fiercely proud of where my roots are. And Weldon, Saskatchewan, it's a town of 160 people there today. And just being in a spot where every day you have cattle to feed, you've got a grain crop you're trying to grow, right? The things are subject to weather. The sort of ups and downs of farm life are so dependent on the 6 pm news and the weather forecast each night. It's at times very stressful, but most times incredibly rewarding, right? There's nothing like sitting in a combine at harvest time with all the fruits of your labors all coming in at the same time. It's a great experience. We had cattle, which is just a never-ending thing, right? You know, our vacations were tied around going to cattle shows, cattle sales, bull sales, cow sales, anything that revolved around the farm. And we had a ton of fun on our vacations going to these events and seeing sites in those areas where we went to. But at the end of the day, you know, your life revolves around the cattle on the farm. It revolves around the farm. There's no sort of, we'll take four months off and not worry about it, right? Those cows have to be fed twice a day and looked after. So it's a lot of responsibility, and it's a great way to get yourself ready for life as an adult.
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So we're a holding company with three distinct companies as part of that holding company. So we've got Legacy Seeds in Wisconsin that's got its roots in breeding alfalfa. Alfalfa is an incredibly important global crop for cattle feed, for dairy feed. And so it's a perennial that you plant, and it grows in the soil for four years. It fixes its own nitrogen. So it's a great crop for sustainability purposes in US and global agriculture. So we have a breeding program in that we've got DF Seeds in Michigan, which has been around since the early sixties, and a lot of history there.
And it focuses mostly on non-genetically modified soybeans that are food-grade. So they have a clear hilum. They have a clear seed coat. They are exported to Asia, so for tofu, soy milk, and things like that. So the core of that business is a little more food-focused. That team is very focused on the export customer, making sure the farmers have a good relationship with us and with their contractors to go overseas. And then we just acquired a third business, TriCal Superior Forage, and this is a triticale breeding business. And triticale is a cross of wheat and rye grass. It's been around for 40 or 50 years. It's been around for a long, long time, but we have one of the only breeding programs globally in that crop. And again, a great story from a sustainability standpoint. It's a cover crop. You plant it in the fall after your corn has been harvested and then it gets established about this high off the ground, and then it goes dormant as it heads into the winter. And then it grows up in the spring. And in some parts of the US, they turn their cattle out to graze on that crop.In other parts, they chop it for forage and put it in a pile for feeding throughout the year.
I think one of the things that we're trying to do is just, again, I think some firms come out and they go to the farmers and say, "You have to change all these things right now. If you're going to cut out your fertilizers, cut out your pesticides. Stop tilling your land." And the farmer's head explodes, right? They're like, "I can't change all that. I still have to feed my family, right? I still have to make a living on this thing." So, we kind of focus on the smaller incremental changes. You know, planting a crop like alfalfa that's in the soil for four or five years and brings some stability to the ground and fixes nitrogen back into the soil is really important, right? So that's a huge benefit for the farm. You know, farming with cover crops, again, a living root in the soil year-round is really important to keep the soil structure together and stop that erosion. And then it works better in no-till situations. So I think we're going to get there. Just, right now I think sometimes you like swing that pendulum in too far to one direction and then you lose all the people you hope to bring along the way. And that's where, when I was at Syngenta in the venture capital group, I always felt like I could help be that voice of the farmer. Now the group I'm with, we're all farm kids. We're all people that know what it's like and know how to talk to these important people in our ecosystem here. And so you know, I think we've got a chance to really make it work because we understand the language they're speaking and have solutions that are important for them. And at the end of the day, they have to make money, right? I think we sometimes forget that - no different than all of us - we have to feed our families. We have to do work that is important, but also if we're busking on the side of the road to feed our family, then we're probably...it's going to be tough, right?
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Farming was really important to him. My dad brought cattle into the farm. He didn't have a high school education at the time, went back in the late eighties to finish off his high school diploma, which was something I'm incredibly proud of him for doing that. And farming in the late eighties was tough. And tough for mom and dad. So, a lot of the land was borrowed at 18 to 21% interest rates. The old Volcker years, right? So, incredibly high interest rates. And then when it didn't rain in '88 and '89, that's a problem, right? When you don't have income coming in and large loan payments and high interest rates to be made was a real issue. So a lot of the land went back to the bank. We continued to farm half of it. Kept the cows. My mom went back to being a nurse, so she was a nurse when her and dad first met and a nurse throughout until my brother and I were born and then took some time off. So she went back to work. Worked incredibly hard to help make ends meet for everybody. So, it was good. I would say, while we didn't have a lot, I don't ever remember not having what I wanted. It's like we always had money to play hockey. We always had time to go, while we were at the cattle sales...you know, it was fun. I would never once go, Man, my childhood, there was so much missing. My parents provided so much for us around every corner, all the opportunities in the world to do what we needed.
This interview was conducted by Bruce Piasecki, Mia Funk & Maureen Nole and with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Bianca Bartolini. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
